


Stamboul Train

by significantowl



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Historical, M/M, Mystery, Orient Express, Post-World War I, Reincarnation, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 13:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1924, the Orient Express rolls across Europe.  In the high places, something waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stamboul Train

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Team Reincarnation in Merlin_Games. Slightly edited from original posting. Contains: Minor character death (canonical), mentions of war, descriptions of seizures. Merlin/Arthur main pairing, previous-life Merlin/Morgana, implied Gwen/Lancelot.

The sleeper compartment was the size of a postage stamp, but it was still one of the most lavish places Merlin had ever seen. He was surrounded by rich wood panelling, polished to gleaming, inlaid with marquetry in swirling Art Nouveau floral designs. The compartment was full of scaled-down portable luxuries, like the pure marble wash basin in the corner with hot and cold taps, and a walnut lid that snapped down to become a table when the sink wasn’t in use. There was another small table extending from the windowsill, with a brass reading lamp on top and a small footstool tucked away below. And finally, there was the elegantly upholstered banquette sofa that would be converted into two beds while they were at dinner.

“The lower berth would be better for me, if that's all right with you?” Merlin spoke casually, as if the other man’s response didn’t matter. He was good at pretending.

“I'm very adaptable,” said the man sharing Merlin’s compartment - he’d introduced himself as Gwaine. He didn’t go so far as to wink, but his voice was like one: warm and flirtatious. “Upper, lower... you’ll find me ready and willing for either.”

“I’m sure,” Merlin said, snorting, surprising himself a little. “Thanks.”

He turned his attention to his luggage, re-buckling the straps. Now that he’d dressed for dinner, his suitcase would have to be stowed on the high rack just below the ceiling. His shaving-kit, though, that could go in the cupboard under the wash basin, as long as it wouldn’t be in Gwaine’s way.

“Are you going to the end of the line, or will you be leaving before that?”

“End of the line,” Merlin said. “Got a job waiting in Stamboul.”

“Oh?” Gwaine, lounging on the sofa, shook his hair from his face. He'd never been within shouting distance of a military command in his life, the unfashionably long hair told Merlin that, along with his easy-going slouch. Merlin wondered if the hair, in particular, was a way of making certain the world knew it. “What sort?”

“Working for an English doctor out there, a friend of my mum's. He needs someone who can dispense medicines as well as translate, and I did both in the Great War.”

“In the East?”

Merlin shook his head. “France, mainly. “ It had been base hospitals along the coast at first, and just behind the Front later on. Years of walking among the broken and the dying, healing as best he could with chemicals. Powders, draughts, capsules, and empty words; nothing, really, that he could bring himself to believe in. “Paris, after the war,” Merlin added, when he realised how long he'd been silent. “I don't know Arabic yet, but usually I'm quick at languages, so hopefully it won't take me long.”

“I bet you're good at everything you do. Kept you from being cannon fodder, eh?”

Merlin smiled tightly, but didn't lie. Didn't, for once, even feel like it. “His Majesty's government would prefer I not drive a car,” he said. “It certainly wasn't going to give me a gun.”

Gwaine made a noise of derision. “They wanted to give me one, all right. Would've had to find me first.”

Being proved right felt nice; it gave Merlin a feeling of connection with this man he'd be spending the next few days with. He jerked his head towards the door. "Dinner?"

Gwaine was on his feet at once. "Now you're talking,” he said, and followed Merlin to the restaurant car.

One decadent course followed another, on snow-white china edged with crisp, intertwining black lines and the monogram of the Venice Simplon-Orient Express. As a dinner companion, Gwaine turned out to be largely uninterested in small talk when there was food on the table, and since Merlin had always felt the same, they got along quite well. After the consommé Bretonné and the turbot dauphine, the lamb cutlets were truly daunting, but Merlin pressed on, letting his fork rest between bites, taking his time.

And then taking too long, though he was completely unaware of it.

“Merlin?”

Merlin blinked, slow and uncoordinated at first, then faster, with a purpose, as he began to realise what was happening. "Yes?” His tongue felt thick in his mouth. Looking down at the white damask table linens, he focused on his tea, imagining its comforting, bracing sweetness, but not daring to lift the cup. Not now. He couldn't make a mess - a scene - now.

“Just admiring the vie- ah, my surroundings,” he said. Not the view, because he hadn't been facing the window, had he? He didn't think so. Fair enough to claim he’d been looking around the dining car, as it was certainly a sight to see; everything was the pinnacle of extravagance, from the immense, cut-velvet armchairs to the magnificent windows with their friezes of Bacchanal figures, true works of art in pressed glass.

The passengers drew the eye as well: the striking brother and sister, fair and dark, sitting at the table across the aisle with their father, whose quite obvious illness had done nothing to diminish his aura of power. They were not easy to look away from, but Merlin finally did, towards the young woman with the dark curls with whom they'd exchanged pleasantries before dinner. She was travelling to meet her brother, an army officer still in the East, and the man with her was her brother's friend and fellow soldier. He appeared to have assigned himself the role of her protector; he certainly seemed to treat her as delicately as he might the hand-blown crystal glasses.

Having made a show of surveying the room, Merlin turned his gaze to Gwaine, who was reclining in his chair with an unworried air, but there was something sharp hidden in those deep brown eyes. “What money buys, eh?” Gwaine said. “Or doesn't, as the case may be.” He winked.

“If it turns out you're a stowaway,” Merlin said, “I think I'd like to retain my blissful ignorance.”

“Sounds like our definitions of bliss vary, friend.”

Merlin smiled, more vaguely than he normally might, looking down at his hands, hidden from Gwaine's sight by the table. They were starkly pale against the black of his new suit’s trousers, and still trembling. Normally they would have stopped by now. Gwaine must have pulled him out before it had truly begun; that wasn't often even possible to do, and it was always better for Merlin afterward if matters were allowed to run their own course.

He glanced out of the window. Twilight in western France: no, he had not been looking at that, not the fields of the Somme, winter-bleak and war-ravaged, six years merely an eye-blink on the road to rebirth. He shifted his gaze across the aisle, just as the dying light caught the son’s fair hair and wrapped him in a deep, burnished gold. Like warmth itself, like....

….Gwaine's elbows were on the table, and he was leaning forward, mask of unconcern gone. He said, “I don't want dessert,” and Merlin knew without a doubt it wasn't true. That it was something that was never true.

Merlin swallowed. “Me either.” The tiny pulse of a headache at his temple was like the touch of an old friend. He couldn't have been gone long.

He wasn't supposed to want to go back.

Gwaine stood first, and waited by their table until Merlin took to his feet, touching the table once for balance as his head grew used to the swaying of the train. There was only room to walk one abreast in the narrow aisle, but Merlin was keenly aware of Gwaine close at his back, and he supposed that accounted for the strong feeling of being watched.

 

*

 

The polite, proper thing to do would be to choose a seat on a sofa further away, letting the fair-haired man - Arthur, Merlin must have caught the name sometime last night, teasing at edge of his hearing - continue to sit alone with his morning paper. 

But he _was_ alone, and Merlin didn’t quite want him to be. 

Merlin sat directly across the aisle, and did not unfurl his own copy of _Le Monde_. Instead, he watched the snow-covered ground pass outside the window, more slowly now that they were into the climb. They had reached the Alps sometime in the night, and would see the Italian border before lunch. The views were dramatic, dizzying heights and towering, white-shrouded pines. Merlin had seen a frozen waterfall earlier that morning, while taking breakfast in their compartment. Sharp, glittering icicles on a bare rock cliff, some taller than a man, frozen in place until change might come. Beautiful, but with a bleak sort of potential; what would they be then?

When Merlin drew his gaze away from the world outside, back inside the train, he found Arthur looking at him.

And Merlin knew, at once - perhaps his clue was in the slight tightening of Arthur’s jaw - that Arthur was not a man who let himself get caught doing many things. This would be Merlin’s fault for sitting so close to him, for blocking his view. For putting his head in Arthur’s way.

“Yes, yes,” Merlin said. “Full responsibility. I know.”

Arthur tilted his head, looking somewhere between astonished and amused. “Well. As long as you know.”

Merlin smiled. He liked the line of Arthur’s jaw, the way it spoke of strength, unquestionable and endless. And, angled just so, of curiosity. This was not a man afraid to ask when he needed to know, nor unwilling to listen to answers.

Nodding at the paper untouched in Merlin’s lap, Arthur said, “The steward can get you the _Times_ , if your French isn’t up to that.”

“ _Mon français est très bien, mais mon attention est ailleurs._ ” My French is very good, but my attention is elsewhere. Merlin watched as a flush stole over Arthur’s cheeks - he’d understood that perfectly, then. Well, of course he had, that arrogance was surely firmly supported by an Oxford or Cambridge education. “Also, reading on a train gives me a headache.”

Arthur sent his gaze heavenward. “Of course it does.” He rustled his newspaper - completely unnecessarily, in Merlin’s opinion - and turned a page. But he didn’t raise the paper, and that left Merlin’s gaze free to wander from his fingers, curled around the edges of the newsprint, stained by a wayward ink smudge or two, up to his shoulders, firm and broad in his sharp grey suit. Used to burdens, Merlin thought, used to carrying too much.

“Your family, are they well today?”

A frown marred Arthur’s forehead. It was a liberty to ask, and Merlin expected to be told off for it, but he didn’t much mind. As Arthur’s eyes narrowed, Merlin felt pinned by his gaze, almost lightheaded with it, but the last thing he would have done was to look away. 

Arthur broke the connection first, and Merlin was sure for a moment that he was about to answer with a very short, rebuking, “No,” but realised instead that Arthur was looking about the carriage to make certain they would not be overhead. “My sister is still resting. She found it very difficult to sleep on the train last night.”

“So did I,” Merlin said, grimacing. “Nothing but noise, all night long.”

“Surely you didn’t expect differently,” Arthur said. “This may be a luxury line, but they’ve yet to invent a silent train.”

“No, but -” Merlin didn’t know how to explain it, so he didn’t try. He’d been on trains before, certainly, passenger trains in Britain and military transport rattling to the coast, but this had been a different kind of noise. None of the regular clack-sway rhythm of the rails, but something louder, something needy somehow. Desperate.

Demanding.

Merlin leaned forward so that he might speak more quietly, letting his forearms rest on his knees. “And your father?”

Arthur pressed his lips together, a muscle jumping in his cheek. This, then, would be where Arthur closed the door on Merlin; he would probably leave - or, no, order Merlin to instead. Merlin’s stomach twisted, and he felt sick at the thought, but not sorry. He’d needed to ask, and perhaps Arthur needed to answer.

Arthur coughed, and spoke. “Missing my sister this morning, I believe. I’ll probably have to rouse her if either of them are to eat lunch.” He smiled without mirth. “What joy.”

“Is this journey a rest cure?” Merlin asked softly.

“No,” Arthur said shortly. He swallowed, jaw working. “We have business affairs to settle in Trieste.”

“Oh,” Merlin said, suddenly understanding all that he needed to. The only detail left, perhaps, was what sort of empire it was that Arthur would be left running when his father was gone. “I’m going to Stamboul,” Merlin said, feeling the need to share something, but not knowing what.

“Your journey will be longer than mine, then.”

“Yes.”

Arthur sighed. “I have to go,” he said. His hair was well-groomed, almost impeccably so, but there was a wayward lock tickling at his forehead. Merlin liked it. "Are you going to sit here all day?

"Maybe," Merlin said absently. He’d worked his way down to the sharp, infinite blue of Arthur's eyes. "Once I decide where I want to be, I tend to stay there."

"Admirable.” Arthur shifted forward in his seat, preparing to stand, but he hadn’t yet looked away. Perhaps he was allowing Merlin to look his fill, or perhaps he had found something worth seeing in Merlin’s eyes in return; either way, Merlin was drowning.

“ _Au revoir_ ,” Arthur said. He stood and exited the car, his stride a confident match for the rocking of the train. With Merlin’s last clear thought, he wondered if Arthur knew his name.

 

*

 

He lost most of the day.

It had never happened like that before, not even in the hospital at Rouen. Every day there was a bad day, but even on the worst ones, when blood-copper was all he could taste and smell, Merlin had never been away that long. A minute, two minutes tops. Even if he might sometimes have wished, selfishly, that it could be different - that one day he might blink back into himself and realise that he'd missed it all. A day, a year, the entire war.

It was early evening now, and the shadow of the train was long against the mountainside. Soon the sky would grey into black, and the mountain peaks would shift from picture-postcard beauties into hulking, shadowed masses that blocked the stars. Merlin must have been alert long enough to show his passport to the Italian border official - surely he had been - but he couldn't remember having done it.

He never knew where he went during times like these, but to Merlin it was definitely a place. Not so to his mother; she'd listened to all the doctors, and her it was medical, scientific, and she chided Merlin whenever she heard him speak as if it were otherwise.

She was wrong. Merlin was sure of it. His mind went on journeys, and never told him where it had been.

There were more people in the lounge car now than there had been that morning, and they were more finely dressed, the men in dark, expensive suits and the ladies in shimmering gowns. Most held a glass of wine or some other before dinner cocktail in hand.

Arthur had not returned to the sofa opposite; it was empty, but to Merlin’s awakening eyes the shape of him was still there, a bright, golden aura against the night.

When Merlin shifted his gaze to his left, he saw Guinevere Smith on the far end of the sofa, working a piece of embroidery. It didn’t seem incongruous for her to be doing so in this setting; watching her quick fingers, Merlin thought it would have felt far more shocking to see her idle. Sunny yellow flowers and leaves in the pale green of spring took shape under her hands on the blank field of linen. He imagined it hanging in her brother’s house one day soon, an English meadow among the sand.

Merlin thought about telling her it was beautiful, but he didn’t know if he could trust his voice. Had she greeted him when she sat down? Had he replied?

Merlin’s head was tight and sharp inside his skull, and when he lifted a hand to press against his temple, it moved too slowly, like it belonged to another time.

 

*

 

Night lengthened. The engines strained as they pulled the train ever higher, up the steepest inclines the journey had seen yet. The train would climb several thousand more feet before reaching the next pass, and all around them great peaks soared higher still, some ten thousand feet or more above sea level. The Orient Express changed engines regularly; the workhorses that pulled the thousand-tonne train through the Alps were not the same engines that had raced through the fields of France.

Peeking out of the window of their tiny compartment, Merlin saw nothing but blackness. Strange, to feel so isolated when he and Gwaine were crammed in like sardines, and to think of a train that stretched over four hundred yards long as small, but looking out at the snowy, silent world, there was no ignoring how alone they truly were.

They’d passed villages earlier, and far-flung farmhouses, but there was nothing, now, no far-off lights, no dark ribbons of road. These heights were not made for people.

Gwaine was lying on his back in the upper berth, humming a tune at the ceiling. Merlin wondered how much longer he would be around. When Merlin had asked Gwaine his destination, he'd said, “The most interesting place this train goes, and nowhere less than that.”

And when would the train would pull into the station at Trieste? Before breakfast? Before lunch?

Change was coming.

Merlin turned from the window and began dressing for bed, hanging his suit up carefully to avoid wrinkles, so that it could be worn another day. He slid beneath the sheets and pulled up the coverlet, the VSOE monogram emblazoned in its centre, and hung his fob watch on the special padded hook just above his pillow. He switched off the light, casting the compartment into darkness.

“Sweet dreams,” Gwaine said.

It was a nice thought.

Minutes passed, or maybe hours. Feet, or maybe miles. Merlin was asleep, or Merlin was awake; it didn't matter. The desperate, demanding thing came back, closer than before, and louder, so very much louder. The roaring took shape in the dark places in Merlin’s head, filling nooks and crevices and quiet, lost places. It left no room for peace.

Merlin screamed without sound. Limbs seizing, he fell from the bed, thrashing as he hit the floor. His muscles flexed and contracted, rhythmically convulsing. Blood dribbled down his chin from a freshly-bitten lip.

Gwaine was pressing the bell, shouting for help, and then gripping Merlin’s shoulders, pressing them to the floor. It was an attempt at stopping Merlin from hurting himself, but it was misguided. What he was really doing was pinning Merlin’s body. Putting it in a trap.

The thing that roared knew traps; it knew dungeons and chains, and it shared what it knew in a language a breath from extinction. Merlin listened, and listened, and listened; he had so very little choice. It told Merlin stories he could have once told himself, and new ones. Of places it had been, and things it had done, and of a high mountain cave that was meant to be a refuge, but with the frailties of nature had become a prison.

Merlin’s body knew frailty. His flesh would not be controlled. His blood dripped onto the floor. 

But his mind heard the call, and his mind answered.

Freedom.

 

*

 

When the chains snapped and the dragon flew, stone and mortar burst apart, filling the sky. Merlin saw walls crumble, lives change, people hurt and people die.

When the mountain cracked open and snow and rock poured down, the impact was tremendous, but it wasn’t what jerked Merlin back to the present. It was the stillness, the lack of motion; the great steel wheels had stopped turning. The Orient Express had ground to a halt. 

Journey over. Wherever they were, they had arrived.

Despite the chaos in the corridor, the screaming and crying, the doors slamming as people moved from compartment to compartment, comforting each other and being comforted, Gwaine was still with Merlin when he opened his eyes. One calloused hand was cradling Merlin’s head, while the other wiped blood and spit from his cheek with a wet flannel.

_I didn’t mean to_ , Merlin tried to say, but it came out like garbled noise - or maybe it came out like dragon-tongue - regardless, it meant nothing to Gwaine, who merely shushed Merlin in reply.

When Merlin rolled over, getting first to his knees, then trying to make it to his feet, Gwaine all but lifted him and placed him on the bed. “I’m going to cover you up. Think it’s about to get very cold,” he said, and pulled up the sheets and blankets gingerly, as if afraid to tuck Merlin in too tightly.

Merlin wanted to say thanks, but didn’t try. He was shivering, and some of it wasn’t from cold, as his muscles were still working out how to act properly. But if the engines weren’t moving, the coal furnaces weren’t burning, and Gwaine was right. It was going to get very, very cold.

“I don’t want to leave you, but I want to find a doctor. _Hell_.” Gwaine’s face was creased with worry, but also a dawning realisation. “You told me. Lower berth, you said. Is it shellshock? But no, you said -” 

Merlin rolled his head from side to side. There had been times when it had been easier to let the answer be yes; a vague smile, a muttered, “I was in France,” and for people who didn't know that Merlin had never carried a rifle, it was enough.

Gwaine straightened up. “Right.”

“Don’t.” Merlin got the word out. He didn’t want or need a doctor. His body had never had a fit like this one before, but he knew why it had, and there wasn’t going to be a repeat performance. The dragon had told Merlin the shape of their cages, his and Merlin’s. And Merlin had freed him, and freed himself.

There wouldn’t be any more of the quieter fits, either, because they had been no such thing all along; Merlin knew that now. Just moments of remembering-without-remembering, little secret excursions to the past. 

A thousand years of memories, shunted to the side. No wonder they had frozen his body whenever they'd broken through. Perhaps it was more surprising that they hadn't taken over entirely; that he had managed to live in the twentieth century at all.

Merlin ached, and he was weary down to his bones, but he had his memory, and he had his magic; for the first time in this life he could feel it, waiting just there, where will met action. If he didn't want Gwaine to go in search of a doctor, then Gwaine shouldn't be able to. Sticking a door fast was such a small thing compared to freeing a dragon.

Small things took finesse. Took control.

Gwaine was gone before Merlin could force another word past his lips. It wasn't an old, secret word he was struggling for, but something smaller, with a different kind of power. _Please._

Merlin had time to think, though, with Gwaine gone, time to think and breathe. Destiny allowed for choices, yes, right ones and wrong ones, but it never allowed for coincidences. He had time to ponder the forces that had led him here; so much bigger than Kilgharrah, so much bigger than Gaius, waiting in Stamboul, who would have paid his fare on this _King of Trains and Train of Kings_ – the nickname suddenly made Merlin's heart stutter - without truly knowing why.

Not just led him here, led them all here. Gwaine. Gwen. Lancelot. Uther. Morgana.

Arthur.

Merlin closed his eyes then, to see him better.

When the door slammed, Merlin jolted. Gwaine stood there in the dark, breathing hard. “No doctor,” he said. “Too busy apparently, even though I’d say his patient is past helping now.”

A wave of cold swept over Merlin, dragging him somewhere deep. Whatever Gwaine said next, it was going to be his fault. Whatever he said -

“That fellow, Uther Pendragon? He’s dead.”

 

*

 

Morning dawned in the Alps.

Merlin swung his legs over the edge of his bunk, bracing himself with his hands as he moved to a sitting position. He dropped his head below his shoulders and allowed it to hang there, letting the ache roll through it, hoping it would settle into something manageable.

He was still sitting like that when footsteps sounded outside the door. For a quick, pointless heartbeat he thought it might be Arthur, but it wasn’t. Of course it wasn't.

Gwaine came in, talking first of the death, which had gained an element of mystery - the story was that Uther’s son had gone to him immediately after the avalanche, and no doctor had been summoned at that time. Supposedly he had been shaken, but not in distress, and Arthur had felt comfortable enough to leave his father alone while going to offer assistance to the conductor.

No mention of Uther’s daughter. Merlin tucked that away. Omissions were always worth noting.

Gwaine spoke of plans. Most of the attendants were outside already, and some of the passengers with them, ruining smart uniforms and Savile Row suits alike as they worked to dig out the train. It was a massive job; some of the drifts reached nearly as high as the carriages, and there were places where men actually stood on the roof of the train, digging from the top down.

Merlin wasn’t to get any ideas about helping. Gwaine was adamant about that. Merlin was supposed to go find Gwen, who was in the dining car waiting for him, ready to share French pastries and rich, creamy coffee. The Wagons-Lits staff not frantically digging were dedicated to making certain that luxury went on. 

“Lancelot’s leading a small party in search of help,” Gwaine said. They would slog through snow and rough terrain, risking frostbite and exposure as they headed for the last village the train had passed, miles and miles back. “I’m going with him.”

Merlin watched Gwaine as he stood there, poised, ready, and certain. He’d remembered how to be a leader, a champion; he and Lancelot would save people, because that’s what they did.

 

*

 

There was only one place Merlin’s feet wanted to go, and it wasn’t the dining car. He slipped along the corridor, ignoring the attendants who begged _Monsieur_ to either join the other passengers in the restaurant car, or to remain please in his compartment. When Merlin reached the deserted lounge car, he stopped just inside the doorway, fingers twisting the sleeve of his jacket. That sofa, there, by the third window. That was where Arthur had been.

When Merlin looked up, he wasn’t alone. Morgana stood at the other end of the lounge car, waiting. 

The change in her was visible at a glance. When he’d seen her before, she’d seemed nothing but confident, head held high, but now there was more than pride or money behind the lift of her chin and the straight line of her back. There was power; there was steel.

Merlin wanted her to see the same when she looked at him.

He walked towards her, fast. Something flickered across her face - maybe fear - it was quicker than a shadow, but Merlin saw it, and it encouraged him. When he reached Morgana, he nodded to the door behind her without a word. She turned, the dark curtain of her hair slipping across her back, and led him through.

Outside the door to Uther’s compartment, Merlin said, “Go on, Morgana. Open it the same way you did last night.”

She raised her hand, and the knob turned without a touch. The lock clicked, the door swung open, and they passed into the dead man’s room.

Uther was lying on the bed as if asleep. Someone had closed his eyes and straightened the bed covers over him - Arthur, Merlin could see him in his mind's eye, jaw firm and hands ever so slightly shaking. The window was cracked, letting in piercingly cold air that was doing a practical service. With temperatures well below freezing, however long the body was forced to remain, there would be no risk of a worrisome smell.

From outside the window, Merlin heard the scrape of shovels and, occasionally, raised voices. Arthur was out there, working under the cold, grey-clouded sky, bending and straightening, throwing shovelful after shovelful of snow away from the tracks. Leading stewards, attendants, and passengers from other carriages that he’d never even met in clearing up the damage – damage that Merlin should be able to clear up himself, just the same as he’d brought the mountain down in the first place.

He’d try, if he knew he could control it. He’d try, but it was too easy to see the train hurtling off the side of the mountain, tumbling through Alpine forests, lying broken and burning at the bottom of a thousand-foot ravine.

He could move so much more than snow, and would, if the power coiled inside him got out of his control.

The compartment was dimly lit, just the cold light peeking through the window. Merlin could see the smile playing at Morgana’s lips, not entirely kindly, suggesting that she could not help but enjoy the sight in front of her - Merlin, frozen and unsure, afraid of his power, just as she had been so long ago.

His right hand was trembling, and no matter how he flexed his fingers, it wouldn’t stop. Merlin shoved it into the pocket of his trousers. He certainly wouldn’t try the magic - any magic - in front of Morgana. She’d seen him stop the tides, turn the sea into a sheet of glass; she couldn’t see him fail.

“What do you want to do? Search his body?” Morgana gestured to Uther. “Try and see what I must have done? Or -” her smile changed, became something more playful - “search mine? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Not today, Morgana.”

“I know, I know. Arthur’s here.” There was no bitterness in her voice, but Morgana took the opportunity to tease him, just, Merlin thought, because she could; curling her fingers around the nape of his neck, letting her thumb rest on the pulse point under his jaw. “You’d love the dress I have for tonight. Slippery as a spiderweb and hardly any back to speak of.”

“You’re in mourning,” Merlin pointed out.

“Ah, you’re right, of course.” She lifted a shoulder. “Well.”

An ache ran through Merlin’s muscles still, making him weary and wishing he could lean against the panelled wall. “Please, Morgana.” A nice touch, he thought, she would like that word. “Please just tell me what happened.”

“Do you mean how I killed him?”

“No.” Merlin let his shoulders touch the wall, briefly. “Because you didn’t. You know where that leads in the end, and you don’t like it.”

“Oh, Merlin. What’s the point of a trap if you don’t try to get out of it sometimes?”

But Morgana glanced away, looking out of the window. Her eyes had barely rested on Uther since they’d come in, and that, more than anything - more than the way she’d howled when Arthur had bled out on the battlefield that very first time - told Merlin the truth of it. If Morgana had done this, the satisfaction for her would be in the seeing. She wouldn’t be able to look away.

She hadn’t done it, and Merlin knew why Morgana was so determined to surround herself in briars and thorns. It was all in those two words.

_Arthur’s here._.

“Morgana,” he said. “I’m tired.”

A hundred years ago, maybe two, Merlin had fallen ill with a fever, the sort that killed strong men in a matter of days. Morgana had sat by his bed, cradling his fever-hot skull in her cool fingers, and whispered words in the old language and in the new. Spells powerful enough to shake him to his bones, and quiet words like “no,” and “stay,” and “need.”

Her eyes softened now. “My dreams have been... interesting, this life,” Morgana said. “I never knew why. But on this train, with you here, they’ve been very clear, and the longer we travelled, the less I began to care for being awake. Then last night -” She paused. “Really, Merlin. You couldn’t have been more subtle?”

“I -” Didn’t know what I was doing. Couldn’t help it. “Kilgharrah wouldn’t shut up,” he said.

Morgana laughed. “The whole train rocked - thanks for not sending us down into the valley, by the way - and when I woke up, I knew that what I’d been dreaming was what had just happened. And knowing that,” she pressed a finger to her temple, “told me everything.”

“And Uther’s compartment was the first place you went.”

She nodded. “By the time I got there, Arthur had come and gone. There was enough moonlight for me to see he was awake, propped up on his pillows.” She paused. Her gaze finally fixed on the bed, but Merlin could tell that she wasn’t seeing what was truly in front of her; she was remembering the night before. “I crossed the room, sat on the edge of the bed, and told my father hello.” 

Two more words with the power to change everything, change a world. _Hello, Father._

Merlin could picture it: the dimly lit room, Uther weak but alert, on edge as everyone on the train had been. Hurried footsteps in the corridor, raised voices, panic, and then Morgana, at his side, behind a door, behind a lock, forcing past into the present.

Memory would not have come to Uther peacefully, nor quietly.

“His conscience killed him,” Morgana said. “Not anything I did.”

No, Merlin thought, no. Fear had stopped his heart, his breath, seized muscle and tissue until it could work no more. Guilt could not do that. Remorse could not do that. Merlin had worked in one base hospital hell after another; Merlin knew. 

But if Morgana wanted to believe that the man who’d loved her in this life would be broken to the core by the knowledge of what he’d once done, Merlin saw no reason for her not to. 

He touched Morgana’s arm. “Let’s go get some air.”

He’d only meant that they should move back into the lounge, but Morgana took him literally, leading him through the exterior door at the rear of the sleeping car. Or perhaps she knew precisely what he’d meant, but wanted to bring Merlin face-to-face with his own night’s work: the collapsed hillside, the churned, angry swath of snow stretching from the peak to their fragile, human transport.

“Kilgharrah’s gone now, isn’t he?”

Merlin nodded.

“Why was he here?”

“He said -” Merlin hesitated. “The war broke the land, and the Old Religion will always need the land.... Something about the future of Albion resting on more than one small island, something about us being well into the age where what happens beyond the waters matters. I - you know how he talks. I think he came to lay magic on a gaping wound, and the Western Front bled him dry.”

The wind was sharp against Merlin’s cheeks, and he turned his head, blinking as it stung at his eyes.

“It would have done the same to you, Merlin,” Morgana said. “So stop what you’re thinking before you begin.”

“All right,” he said. “Yes.”

The sound of voices from the men working on the far side of the train shifted, growing closer. It was probably just a trick of the wind, but Merlin's stomach knotted nonetheless. He needed to see Arthur, but not like this. Not with Morgana, not with strangers. Not with anyone.

As for Morgana, Merlin turned towards her, urgent. “I don’t think you should tell Arthur you were in Uther’s room last night.”

“Because?”

“You don’t know if he remembers, or what he remembers. His first thought -” may be the same as Uther’s last one - “may not be one you wish him to have.”

“I see,” Morgana said. “Allow me to guess. You’ve decided not to tell Arthur how the mountain got from up there to down here, haven’t you?”

_Decided_ implied that he’d thought it over, and made a choice. Merlin had done nothing of the sort, but instinct would have given him a push down that path anyway; from the sharp glance Morgana threw him, she knew it.

“We haven’t spoken today,” Merlin said, as if that was enough reason.

Morgana snorted. “You will.”

“Morgana. Listen. All our memories came back at once, but I’m not certain that would happen for anyone else. Wouldn’t -”

_Wouldn’t there have been recognition in Gwaine’s voice last night, when he tried to take care of me? Wouldn’t Lancelot have been by to ask if there was anything I could do to get us out of here?_

_Wouldn’t Arthur have come to me already?_

There was no point in thinking about it further, because it hadn’t happened, but Merlin couldn’t help himself. Wouldn’t Arthur have burst into the compartment last night when Gwaine shouted for help, wouldn’t he have pushed Gwaine aside, talked and pleaded until Merlin came back to himself? Wouldn’t Merlin have woken with his head in Arthur’s lap, wouldn’t Arthur have held him until he stopped shaking himself apart?

Morgana circled his wrist, drawing his attention back to her. “I’ve never wanted anything less than the truth from anyone. Do you honestly believe my brother to be any different?”

Merlin shook his head, looking at her fingers instead of her eyes.

“There are things that don’t change, Merlin,” she said, and they were silent after that, there at the top of the world.

 

*

 

Morgana probably knew where Merlin was going when he left her, but she didn’t follow. Merlin sat on the sofa opposite the third window while the chill crept in, up from the floor and through the walls. He noticed when the shovelling dropped off outside; no more voices, no more scrapes and thuds. He forced himself to breathe slowly. Out, in. Out, in.

He was staring at his hands, fingers spread, when Arthur came in.

Arthur’s trousers were soaked through, and his face was reddened from the cold. He stared at Merlin, unreadable. Merlin knew that expression well; it was a king holding everything in reserve. Thoughts, feelings. Judgement.

Merlin swallowed, wetting his throat. He'd said this first a thousand years ago, but that didn’t make it any easier. Not at all. “I’m so sorry about your father,” he said, eyes flicking away from Arthur, back to his hands.

He heard Arthur moving, the soft thump of his wingtips on the carpet, the rustle of his trousers. Then Arthur was sitting across the aisle, leaning forward, forcing himself into Merlin’s field of vision. Merlin could avoid Arthur’s eyes, but not his arms, resting on his knees; not his hands, steepled, tapping against his lips. “It was expected. Whether it happened last night, or next week, or a month from now. It was coming.”

“Yes, but I -” Took the wheels, and turned them faster. Not in an old man’s body this time, but with an old man’s mind. They’d done it together, he and Morgana, all over again. Two people who were supposed to love Arthur best, and they'd done it again.

Merlin didn’t realise how hard he was clenching his hands, fist over fist, until Arthur caught them, forcing him to stop.

“Imagine how much easier life would be if you would just listen when I speak, Merlin.” Arthur rubbed his thumb over Merlin’s knuckles. His hands were shockingly cold, but Merlin didn’t mind. It was his own name in Arthur’s mouth that made him shiver, like a brush of fingertips on the back of his neck. “He was dying.”

“I know.” Merlin nodded. “I know.” He raised his head, forcing himself to meet Arthur’s eyes. He would say this, and everything would be on the table. He would know exactly what Arthur remembered. He would know what Arthur could accept.

He would know what Arthur could give.

“The mountain -” Merlin’s throat closed up as if in self-defence. Arthur would laugh at him, because the idea would be ridiculous to a man born at the turn of this century, and that might still be all Arthur remembered himself to be. Arthur would pull back, face drawn in anger, because he would remember only when magic meant fear to him, and hatred, and death. Arthur would -

The thought that ended in hope was the only one that Merlin couldn’t finish. He pushed himself to speak. “The mountain. I did that.”

“Yes,” Arthur said, casting his eyes toward the ceiling. “I thought that had you written all over it.”

There was hope again, quick and spiking. But it was too early for that; he had to tell it all. “It was the dragon. He'd hidden away in a cave up there, and the rocks shifted, and he was too tired to free himself. And I didn’t mean to, but I -” Merlin gestured at the window, half-blocked by snow. “And now - I can’t. I can’t.”

The last time Merlin had freed Kilgharrah, the dragon had torn Camelot apart. The death of Arthur’s father, the destruction wrought on his home and his people; Merlin could hardly have picked worse moments for Arthur to relive, or worse ways to re-introduce him to all that Merlin was. He couldn’t stop himself from looking away again, down at the carpet, unwilling to see the cold shadow of memory in Arthur’s eyes.

“You can't? Why not? You're not actually admitting that you're useless, are you?”

Arthur’s tone made it clear: Merlin was supposed to huff at that, and shoot back a sarcastic reply, but he could only sigh. “This body is,” he said, low. “I've never been in charge of it. Not really, it -” He broke off. “I can't trust it with magic. Can't trust myself.”

“Merlin.” Now Arthur was clenching Merlin’s hands, hard enough to hurt. “I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm cold, and I'm wet. You're going to take care of that for me. Right now.”

“No, I'm not,” Merlin said. Blood rushed in his ears, and his hands shook, barely controlled even by Arthur’s firm grip. It was all too much. The sudden familiarity was breaking him - Arthur's touch, Arthur's voice, Arthur's inescapable commands - and the thought of doing magic on Arthur was more than he could take. 

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Right now.”

Merlin laughed, and heard something tinged with hysteria in it. “Have you decided which body part you'll miss the least? I'll start there.”

“Well, my toes are completely numb, and I trust you more than I trust gangrene,” Arthur said. “Much more,” he added, steady and quiet, when Merlin didn't move.

Merlin nodded, and drew a deep breath. He willed a little fire to his fingertips, and it came at once, softly flickering. He cupped it into his palm and held it there, and when didn't singe his skin, didn't flare out of control, he carefully lowered his hand to the floor and sent the heat curling around Arthur's ankles.

He watched while the sodden cuffs of Arthur's trousers grew drier and lighter, from wet, inky black to charcoal grey, and when he looked up Arthur's expression clearly said, “I told you so.”

“But that's not the same,” Merlin said, tamping down a swift surge of panic. “Not the same at all.”

“Nonsense.” Arthur stood. “Come on now, Merlin. It’s your mess, and guess what?”

Merlin bit at his lip, at the smile that suddenly threatened to appear, in spite of everything. “You’re going to watch me clean it up?”

“Got it in one,” Arthur said, and dragged Merlin to his feet.

Arthur led the way, clearly without the slightest bit of concern that Merlin might not follow. And he was right, of course. When Arthur suddenly halted just before reaching the exterior door of the carriage, Merlin was so close at his heels that he stumbled against Arthur’s back. Before Merlin could say a word, Arthur turned round and reached for Merlin, pulling him to his chest in a fierce, silent command. As if there were any chance of Merlin wanting to escape when Arthur’s arms were around him.

“Missed you,” Arthur breathed. His lips pressed firmly just below Merlin’s ear.

“You too,” Merlin said, shaping the words against Arthur's cheek. He breathed there for a moment, letting his lips feel the scratch of Arthur's stubble, and the strong slope of his jaw. “Last time I saw you, you were off to fight the Armada in that ridiculous doublet and hose.”

“After I had just used every bit of influence I had to keep you out of the Tower. Did you manage to stay out after I was gone?”

“Barely. Morgana's a terrible influence, sometimes.” But only sometimes. Merlin nudged lower, down to touch the warm beat of Arthur’s pulse, because he could. There was no denying that Morgana had been right today; he and Arthur would not be like this, now, if Merlin hadn't begun with a confession, with the truth.

“Wait a minute.” Arthur drew back, frowning. “Does that mean you didn't like any of the doublets I had commissioned for you either?”

“I never said that,” Merlin said, laughing at the three-hundred-year-old pout on Arthur's face, until Arthur cuffed him on the head, and led him out into the snow.

It wasn’t easier to look at the devastation with Arthur at his side. It really wasn’t. Not the ugly, broken mountainside, and certainly not the train - dozens of men, hours of labour, and they’d managed only to free part of one carriage. Merlin’s heart beat dizzyingly hard, and his fingers tingled and shook. With Arthur at his side, there was no question, no hiding; any moment now, he’d be holding a thousand-tonne train in place, and moving hundreds of pounds of snow. Any moment now.

“I know you can fix this,” Arthur said. He glanced at Merlin, squinting a little against the brightening sun, then back to the train, relentlessly drawing Merlin’s gaze with him. “Not because of the things I’ve seen you do before, even though I know - I _know_ \- this is nothing to you. I know you can fix this, because people need help. You never stop when people need help.”

Merlin laughed, shaky. “Won’t they wonder why all the snow suddenly went away?”

Arthur shrugged. “It’ll be another avalanche. Another very specific, very targeted avalanche.” At Merlin’s frown, Arthur huffed a sigh. “Merlin. When faced with the unbelievable, people tend not to believe it. They’ll call it a miracle of nature.”

“I suppose you’d know something about it,” Merlin said, snorting. Arthur swatted at his neck, Merlin shoved his shoulder, and they jostled each other there in the snow, hands and arms and elbows. It might have looked like stalling, but it felt like so much more than killing time.

When Merlin drew away, he was ready.

It must have showed in his face, the set of his shoulders. Arthur’s smile was fond and proud, and worth far more than anything the Orient Express could possibly offer. And Merlin would get to see it again, when he was done; and in the days and years to come, there would be many more.

“A miracle of nature,” Arthur repeated. “They won’t be far wrong.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The element of a death while the train is caught in the snow is borrowed from Agatha Christie. The title is taken from the novel _Stamboul Train_ by Graham Greene.


End file.
